A Christmas Dirge
by 96 Hubbles
Summary: Bob Cratchit didn't know how good he had it.


_Disclaimer: My apologies to everyone, especially Dickens._

**A Christmas Dirge**

Klink was the Kommandant to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The order giving him command was signed by the district commander, various officials, clerical functionaries, and his direct superior, General Burkhalter, and Burkhalter's was as good as any name when it came to a country held at the mercy of a madman.

There was no doubt that Klink was Kommandant. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that the mummy was dead before the movie began, there would be nothing remarkable to cause the frenzied panic of Abbott and Costello.

Bob Hogan knew Klink was Kommandant? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Klink and he were adversaries for I don't know how many years. Klink was his obstacle, his bane, his irritant and albatross. And even if Hogan was not so very impressed by Klink's position, he could hardly say to be ignorant of it, situated as the man was, squarely in the way of his plans and schemes every day of the year.

Once upon a time, however - of all good days in the year, on Boxing Day - Bob Hogan sat busy at his planning table. Despite the season, it was warm and cozy, and he could hear his men laughing merrily outside his door, reliving the previous day's jovial festivities without a care in the world. Hogan's watch had just gone seven, but it was quite bright already. To see the cheery sun, raising exultantly up, warming and illuminating everything, one might have thought the spirit of a marvelously present-filled Christmas morning lived hard by, and was celebrating on a large scale.

"Oh, Colonel Hogan, it is terrible! You must do something!" wailed a woe-begotten voice. It was the voice of Klink's head guard, who came upon Hogan so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

"A belated Merry Christmas, Schultz!" Hogan cried. "How was your leave with Klink?"

He had so tired himself with the rapid waddle across the small compound, this head guard of Klink's, that he was all in a lather; his face was florid and perspiring; his eyes bulging, and his chest wheezed again.

"Merry Christmas, Colonel Hogan?" said Sergeant Schultz. "You cannot talk of such things now!"

"Why not?" Hogan asked. "Merry Christmas! What reason have you not to be merry? Youre comfortable enough. The camp has had no escapes. You're not headed east, to play target for all of those lucky Russian snipers who got a new rifle from Santa. Why, none of the guards have even deserted this year! Surely that's the mark of a merry Christmas?"

"Oh, Colonel Hogan," returned the sergeant touchily, "What reason do you have not to be worried? You're in trouble enough." He deflated like a harpooned hot air balloon. "We all are," he said with a wobble of lip.

"Whatever do you mean, Schultzie?"

"It is the Kommandant! He has gone mad!" the good sergeant reported in a voice hushed with awe.

Hogan, alert leader though he was, could only look upon the Sergeant's terrified jowls a-quivering and laugh dismissively at any notion that produced such a comical spectacle. "Why do you think hes gone mad, Schultzie? Has he made a rash stand against that spider that climbed out of his bathroom sink the other day?"

"No," whispered Sergeant Hans Schultz, leaning in closely, "it is worse than that. Much, much, worse!" He moved his ponderous head from side to side, as if frightened the object of his worries might suddenly materalize without warning.

"He has become _nice!" _the terrified man exclaimed.

-x-

And, as "Bob" Hogan - a name to which the new man Kommandant Klink had become insisted on calling him - was to discover, Hans Schultz's statement proved to be nothing but the truth.

The instigating cause of such an impressive alteration in the nature of the cosmos as Klink's personality change was, and is, unknown to us. Was it the drumbeat of the marching steps of his approaching enemy? Was it the fear of Hell? Was it that the veil of delusion had finally been lifted, allowing him to see for the first time how others viewed him? Or was it even perhaps a series of visitations of spectral lecturers, as presciently foretold by an unknowingly callous, and very wordy, 19th century English writer?

Whatever took place over that fateful Christmas leave, it is not ours to know. It is only the results with which we must concern ourselves with. For, though it was an almost too tragic fact to be believed, Kommandant Wilhelm Klink was bound and determined to inflict his inspired kindnesses on his entrapped fellow men, to the detriment of the world.

His first tender-hearted blow against humanity was to invite Hogan and his men, as well as his beleaguered Sergeant of the Guards, who had endured a lifetime's affliction of friendliness just the day before, to a large Christmas feast. No expense was spared: there were stunning decorations to delight the eye and warm the heart, sugared confections enough to please the greediest child, and a turkey, roasted beautifully to a golden-brown perfection.

But then there was also food-poisoning in the form of a badly prepared (Klink insisted on doing it himself) oyster stuffing. In the rather painful and messy aftermath, our newly downtrodden Bob Hogan found himself left with a barracks full of ill and weakened men (except for Lebeau and Carter, who, as the smallest and slightest of Hogan's men, had been sick enough to warrant a trip to the hospital for a stomach pump), as well as a whining pickpocket and radio man, both of whom had further suffered by injuring their backs when attempting to assist a woefully distressed Schultz. Hogan did vainly attempt to cheer his men by pointing out that Christmas only came once a year, to which Newkirk replied that that was a poor excuse for destroying a man's innards every 25th of December (or 26th, as the case was), but it was Kinch who levelled his Colonel's efforts like a V2, by pointing out that now everyone was too sick to take out the anti-aircraft guns near the power plant like London needed.

And so HQ was forced to scupper a vital raid and, in the days that followed, Hogan's confidence began to erode under the first of many assaults by Klink's relentless pick-axe of goodwill.

An extra hot shower per week per man caused the pipes to burst, meaning not only that the men now had NO hot showers, or indeed showers of any kind, but it also nearly lead to the operation's discovery by a plumber too curious for his own good.

New blankets, supplied by a Klink so eager to provide them he failed to have them cleaned, produced maddening - and very visible - rashes. So visible that all outside excursions had to be halted because there was no one who wouldn't stand out to the Germans.

And on it went. Klink visited with his prisoners often, reducing their morale with attempts at consolation, and thwarting their war effort by forcing them to hide their supplies, maps, and tools at every entrance; whatever men weren't now on watch for their "source of comfort" were now required to distract Klink and keep him from throwing stolen blueprints hidden in the woodpile onto the fire. Mission specialists, unwisely in the barracks and not safely in the tunnels, were injured and incapacitated in Klink's dragging them out to play sports in the compound. One rocket expert, struck by a metal pole that fell when Klink accidentally ran into the volleyball net and pulled the entire structure down as he fell to the ground, would never be the same again. Escaping prisoners were nearly buried in the tunnels below, when Klink decided to put in a pond next to the delousing shed so that the prisoners would have somewhere to cool off in the heat of the summer. Carter could not be sent out to blow up bridges and factories when the Kommandant decided to take him under his wing and night after night had him over to his quarters to endure a debilitating (to Carter) attempt to teach him chess.

Then, Lebeau, given new boots which were resplendent in looks but not so ample in grip, slipped on the ice and broke his ankle badly enough that he was reduced to walking with crutches and could not cook for a visiting General Burkhalter. Klink, who would not hear of anyone else doing the job, took over kitchen duties. As you, gentle reader, may have guessed, Klink's demotion was only prevented by several days worth of exhausting effort on the behalf of an increasingly frayed at the nerves Hogan and his despairing men. However, even they could not alter Burkhalter's bellowed vow to stop visiting Stalag 13, and opportunities to kidnap scientists, learn of German construction plans, and other "Generally" delivered plums, dwindled to nothing.

London screamed and Hogan whimpered.

Yes, our heroes endured untold Christmas misery for many weeks before the heroes finally had enough spare time to devise a plan.

"I have it!" Hogan cried at last. "Kommandant Klink must have a visit from the Three Ghosts of War!"

His men, in varying stages of despondency, burst into tears at the thought that their CO had finally taken all leave of his reason, and tried to convince him to retire to his bed in the hopes that a good night's rest would restore him to sanity. When he could not be prevailed upon to do so, they were forced to go along with his plan.

The first ghost, that of Wars Past, came at one in the guise of their own Sergeant Schultz. In luminescent garb he desperately danced before his drugged Kommandant, narrating the prisoners' prepared slideshow of Germany's many humiliations in the first war, and pointedly alluding to Klink's own many embarrassments and failures to prove himself.

At two, the horrifying and sneering specter of War Present - Major Hochstetter - lit up Klink's bedroom. Klink did hesitate at the sight of the screeching six-foot-tall disembodied head of his most feared nemesis (photo enlarged and voice provided by the increasingly insane Sergeant Andrew Carter) covering the wall in front of him, but he refused to acknowledge how his newfound kindness was dooming humanity.

At three, came the ghost of Wars Yet to Come - Colonel Hogan himself. His dire story of how Klink would go to his cold, Russian, grave in less than a year, mocked by his enemies for being soft, his death gleefully celebrated with champagne by Hochstetter and Burkhalter as they divvied up his meagre possessions, while he, Hogan, would be lauded for his strong stand against mercy...

Unfortunately did nothing.

Wilhelm Klink proclaimed to the end that he would remain a kind and decent fellow no matter what the consequences, that he would keep Christmas in his heart the whole year round, and would do everything in his power to assist all of mankind.

Klink was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Lebeau, who DID die, he became a second devil. He become as frightening an enemy, as frightening a commander, and as frightening a man as the whole world knew. Some people cried to see the alteration in him, but he let them cry, and little heeded them; for he was not wise enough to see that through his misguided efforts the Allies would lose the war, and the entire world would fall into evil as the Nazis took power. And it was always said of him, that he knew how to inspire dread of Christmas and its ill-considered blissful mindlessness well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.

And so, as Tiny Lebeau observed, God Help Us, Every One!


End file.
